History of Microsoft Windows 2.0

In December 1987 Microsoft releases Windows 2.0 which was designed for the Intel 286 processor
and introduced the capability to overlap windows within the operating system this led to a legal conflict between Microsoft and Apple who claimed Microsoft was infringing upon copyrights concerning the “look and feel” claiming it had been taken from the Macintosh operating system.

Which later a judge dropped all but ten of Apple one hundred and eighty-nine claims to copyright infringements and ruled that the other ten ideas could not be copyrighted.

In 1988 Microsoft released windows 2.1 this was to be a milestone in the windows development as for the first time not only was there support for the use of High Memory area. Windows/386 2.1 also introduced the Protected mode kernel. This was the predecessor to the XMS which would finally become the topology of IBM PC computing.


Windows 2 brought about many programs and feature we know and still use today including the control panel the very first version of Microsoft word and excel. During the two years windows 2 was on the market as Microsoft's newest product many developers maintained a dos version of their software.


Today some of the most popular office programs take their basis from those released within windows 2.0/2.1 Excel and Word for windows where first introduced, there programs could be run in MS-DOS.

My the end of 1988 Microsoft was becoming the software giant we know today, as computers became a part of everyday life Microsoft became the biggest software company in the world. This was based on the Sales of the year.

The history of Microsoft windows 1.0 can be found Here

The history of Microsoft windows 3.0 can be found Here